Conventional bottles for holding talcum powder, foot powder, baby powder, etc. have a rotatable cap with apertures and an internal sifter with apertures. In an opened position, the apertures in the cap align with the apertures in the sifter and permit the powder to be dispensed. In a closed position, the cap apertures are rotated away from alignment with the sifter apertures such that the powder is retained in the bottle. The opened and closed positions of the conventional powder bottle cap are determined by stop lugs provided on the neck of the bottle and internal stop lugs provided on the cap. Although these known powder caps effectively retain the product when it is not in use, such caps lack tamper-evident and child-resistant features.
Various foodstuff products, such as milk, employ tamper-evident caps that provide consumers with a readily-recognizable assurance that the product has not been altered. Tamper-evident caps typically utilize a tear strip having internal teeth that mate with teeth provided on or near the neck of the bottle, such that the cap of the bottle cannot be rotated to remove the cap until the tear strip is removed.
Child-resistant press-and-twist caps for securing threaded lids to a threaded bottle neck are widely used in the pharmaceutical industry, and in other applications, e.g., see U.S. Pat. No. 6,112,921 to Robinson. The Robinson '921 patent discloses a cap with depressable panels which abut against stops provided proximate to the neck of the bottle when closed. When the panels are depressed, they move out of alignment with the stop, allowing the lid to be unthreaded from the bottle neck. The closure disclosed in Robinson '921 is not tamper evident and would not be suitable for a powder dispenser bottle, in that the closure is threaded and removable, rather than rotationally limited between an opened and closed position. The closure of Robinson '921 does not have dispensing apertures.
It would be desirable to have a sifter-type dispenser bottle having an opened and a closed position, and thus suitable for dispensing flowable material such as powder which is tamper-resistant and/or child resistant.